Charleston, SC

Sunday, December 16, 2007

If you are looking for a treat, something that is refreshing and loaded with common sense then read Praying at Burger King by Richard Mouw. This little book includes dozens of short essays on topics of every day interest. There is no mistaking the fact that Mouw is an evangelical Christian and an old fashioned proponent of the now almost defunct Protestant Work Ethic. Mouw is the president of Fuller Theological Seminary in California, but he is no angry stuff shirt.

The book, published by William B. Eerdmans Publishers, rises to its highest point in the first essay from which the book gets its title. The author explains why he does pray at Burger King. It is a great explanation. In his essay on, "Eating Alone," he decries the demise of the family meal. He believes that this has great consequences for the future because the family dinner table is our first and chief classroom. The family meal is more than food. "We even learn to sit for thirty minutes with people we don't like at the moment" Mouw points to the work of Robert Putman, the Harvard professor, who wrote about the alone society in Bowling Alone.

Eating at Burger King is stuffed full of wonderful messages to take away, but if I had to choose just one statement to take away it would be this one. "What is needed is a renewed emphasis on seeing our daily work as a way to show love both to God and to our neighbors.

Charleston, SC

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